


Hermione Granger, the Unspeakably Fabulouses, and the Killing Purse

by lucy_blue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (drunken/while under the influence of intoxicants), (or more like? attempt at it and it works some of the time but blows up a lot?), Alternate Universe, Crack, Gen, Inspired by Stabby the Romba, Inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, Minor Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, Not Beta Read, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, The DepartmentTM, Unspeakable Hermione Granger, Veil of Death (Harry Potter), Voldemort is a terrible dark lord, World Domination, it's fun, none of my stuff is beta read but this is barely even me read so i thought I should tag that, technomagic, the Unspeakables want to show him how dark lording is really done, the finest of crack, the killing purseTM, this is a hot mess and it's beautiful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 20:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15714216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucy_blue/pseuds/lucy_blue
Summary: The Unspeakables live reasonably interesting lives, but, well, this just takes the cake.aka:The Unspeakables get very drunk and have some unspeakably good fun. Hermione maintains that none of this is her fault and no one is allowed to blame her.aka:“You know… if yuh, uh… think about it,” Hermione slurred, “Vol-voldeshort, he uh, he really sucked at ya know, dark lording.”“The robes are… jus’...sotacky. The… they’re the real crimes against humanity, ya know?”“Killin’... killin’ purse!”“I… it would be like… bitey! Like… the monster book Hagrid…”“We would make great Dark Lords... the entire Depar’ment… an’ Harry, too… have youheard13’s evil laughter? It’s… beautiful…”





	Hermione Granger, the Unspeakably Fabulouses, and the Killing Purse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FiberBard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiberBard/gifts).



It was a Thursday when it began, for, as anyone can tell you, Thursdays are the most unlucky day of the week. People may say that it is Monday that is the worst day of the weekend, but the horrificness of Mondays is a mere societal construction due to being the first day of the work week, whereas the horrificness of Thursdays is depressingly inherit, a notable and unchanging feature. 

It was such a very well documented phenomenon that Hermione and Unspeakable X679 had given it a considerable amount of research, but, seeing as this research had been primarily conducted on Thursdays, it was no wonder all the experiments spontaneously exploded. 

Hermione’s day began in a way similar to most others. She woke up a little bit later than usual, as she and Unspeakable E2245 had been busy into late last night… doing what, Hermione couldn’t remember, which boded ill. Hermione’s head was pounding with a terrible hangover, and frankly, she was surprised she had managed to make it home at all. 

Hermione showered and dressed, then hurried to work without stopping to eat. Her commute was hampered by the sedate, mysterious walk all Unspeakables were required to walk with when in-robe, and also by the fact that she really, _really_ wanted a nap. 

Hermione entered the Department, throwing off the foolish Unspeakable robes, with their impractically long sleeves, shrugged on her lab coat, and pulled her wild, bushy hair back, using the ward-imbued hair pin which would keep her hair from interfering with her projects. She then headed to the lounge for some food and coffee. 

Unspeakable X679, better within the Department as X (because X loathed nicknames with a passion, and enjoyed being flamboyantly mysterious) was currently flopped out on one of the couches, devouring a book on the nature of space-time. Their coffee was floating next to them, steaming gently. “Morning,” X said. “The coffee today is extra exceptional, by the way.” 

The coffee was always good, but it was a little bit better than normal this morning. The coffee machine had been modified by both Unspeakable 1389, who was working on developing something she called “technomagic”, and Unspeakable 402, who had a pet project on imbuing ordinary food with the power of potions. 

Once Hermione had drank her coffee, she found herself feeling a good bit better. She headed to her lab and set to work on her current project, which was an attempt to learn what happened during Transfiguration, a molecular level. Her microscope was a prototype that had been produced by 13, and she still had to do some tests to make sure the magic that kept the microscope from exploding due to proximity to magic, wouldn’t influence the tests themselves. It was big headache, especially when the microscope spontaneously exploded. 

What could have caused such a rapid deterioration of the wards around the microscope? Hermione wondered to herself as she carefully gathered the pieces to bring to 13. 

13 was, sadly, rather busy. 13 had evidently not left the Department all night; there were mugs and mugs of empty coffee stacked everywhere (suddenly Hermione understood why the coffee maker was now so much more efficient) and scraps of paper tacked to every wall. Several books of computer programming were stuck to the ceiling. 13 was in the center of it all, laughing maniacally as she scrawled what looked, to Hermione’s rather ignorant eye, like a mixture of Python, Java, and Younger Futhorc, all three terribly bastardized. 

Upon seeing Hermione, 13 grinned psychopathically. “I HAVE IT!” she announced, before once more falling into a fit of supervillain worthy giggles. “The answer is to fully combine the code with runes and create a new language that way! That way, there would be no need for wards at all!” 

“Makes sense,” Hermione nodded. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t try this before now,” 13 sighed. “You know, sometimes I think I rely on wards too much… that could be why I didn’t try this before now.” 13 loved wards. Her office was warded, the coffee maker was warded, she’d been the one to ward Hermione’s hair pin- she’d even helped repair the Hogwarts wards after the Hogwarts battle. 13 was fluent in all three runic languages, as well as Latin, Russian, and Esperanto. She kept her warded notes written in Esperanto using Cyrillic letters. She said it helped her think best. 

It wasn’t as bad as X though, whose notes were Eldritch things, far beyond human comprehension, featuring all three runic languages, morse code, musical notation, letters written backwards and sideways, and hieroglyphics. 

“By the way,” 13 said, “Your purse sentified.” 

Objects tended to sentify when around regular magic, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that other objects tended to sentify when around all of the crazy, experimental magic of the Department. The couch in the lounge, for instance, enjoyed having scientific formulas read to it, had a taste for muggle currency, and would purr when you gave it a good scratching. It’s favorite humanoid was X, and as such, they spent a lot of time together; X would slip muggle currency down the couch’s seams as treats. 

“It wasn’t an accident, either,” 13 said with a terrifyingly cheerful grin. “Here, you can watch the recordings.” 

13 had warded and set up cameras around parts of the Department; they were incredibly useful when conducting experiments, as playing things back could allow the Unspeakables to see just where things went wrong. They would probably be more useful if they didn’t blow up so often, but, well, you win some, you lose some. 

Hermione settled down in the lounge to nurse her hangover potion laced coffee and see what she and E22 had gotten up to last night. 

~

“You know… if yuh, uh… think about it,” Hermione slurred, “Vol-voldeshort, he uh, he really sucked at ya know, dark lording.” she giggled. “Liiiike… his hor- horcruxes, they uh, were really stuh- stupid. Shoulda been, like, sand… grain ah sand, or somethin’, that way we never woulda found them. And… horcruxes in general, were like? Not a good idea?” 

“The robes are…” E22 sighed dramatically, “jus’... _so_ tacky. The… they’re the real crimes against humanity, ya know?” 

Hermione giggled again. “Yeh!” 

“Obvi...ously based offa unspeak’ble robes,” E22 said, taking another big swing of his bottle of experimental Fiendfyre Whiskey. He burped, and a little spurt of flame danced past his lips. “This is real good,” he sighed happily. 

“Yeh,” Hermione agreed. “...member when you used to set errything on fire? Back at Hogwarts?” 

“Yer not supp’sed to talk ‘bout that!” E22 protested. “Member? We’re… unspeak’bles… you ar’en s’possed to know…” 

“Ugh… but it’s so stupid!” Hermione protested, taking another swing. “I mean, you know I’m Seamus, and I know… waiiiit… i mean…” she groaned. “Ughhh… I just, I wish I could, ya know, ask you how Dean is doing at work, ya know? Or talk abou’ work with you at DA reunions…” 

“Dean is doing amazin’,” Seamus/E22 said, brightening up considerably. He started going off on a long, drunken ramble about how absolutely amazingly fantastic his boyfriend was doing, until finally Hermione broke in, “can we- uh- talk abouh some’hin else?’ 

“Ughhhh,” Seamus groaned. “Fiiiine. What?” 

“We coulda done so much better than Voldesmorts,” Hermione said. “V...voldesnorts? I… I dohn think I’m sayin’ that right…” 

“We coulda, though,” Seamus said, taking another swig. “Like… he coulda killed Harry just by dropkickin’ him oh the window… babies are… squishy and… easy tah kill.” 

“I knoooow!” Hermione laughed. “He was just… he loved his killing purse so much…” 

“Killin’...” Seamus started laughing hysterically, “killin’ purse!” 

Hermione started laughing hysterically as well. “I… it would be like… bitey! Like… the monster book Hagrid…” 

“We would make great Dark Lords,” Seamus said with a silly grin. “The entire Depar’ment… an’ Harry, too… have you _heard_ 13’s evil laughter? It’s… beautiful…” 

“Mericans,” Hermione muttered. “Crazyy… all ah em...” 

“Yer not supposed to know 13’s an American!” Seamus protested. 

“But her accent!” Hermione protested. “I’s… obvious…” 

“You know…” Seamus said abruptly, “we should, uh, make a killing purse! It would be…. Sooooo funny!” 

~

For a proclaimed killing purse, it didn’t actually seem _too_ homicidal. Sure, it did have inch long, needle thin, sharp teeth, and it did have a surprisingly terrifying growl for such a tiny and, well, _cute_ being, but it just gnawed on Hermione’s finger, instead of going for the jugular. 

Hermione didn’t think it was as bad as the incident with the vinyl player, at least. But then again- was _anything_ as bad as the vinyl player incident? Hermione wasn’t sure. 

The Department really rallied around their new friend. 42 donated some of xir stash of blood for the little cutie to sate its appetite on, X soothed it to sleep by waxing poetic on the first law of thermodynamics, Double Q spun his swivel chair around and around so it could get all dizzy, and every Unspeakable was always ready to give its beads a nice scritch in that spot that made it growl happily. 

When it ate C89’s wand, no one got mad, they just started bringing wand wood and muggle pencils in for their friend to gnaw on. It started to get a real taste for apple slices, and pretty soon every Unspeakable in the Department made sure to have a few apples stashed somewhere in their office/lab/ritual room. They were all so proud when it started sharpening its teeth on 67U’s sword collection, and everyone made sure to thank “Beady” as it became known when it happily devoured trash for them. Unlike a lot of people (*cough cough Ministry Janitorial Staff cough*) it had no trouble dealing with toxic, Dark or Eldritch trash- in fact, those were its favorite types to snack on!

Beady really and truly secured its place as the eternal owner of the Department’s hearts, brains, and other emotion feeling organs when Inspection Day came around.

Once a year, some poor sap from the “boring Ministry” as the departments outside The Department were known, was expected to come in and check that there were no holes in reality, muggles, time travellers, etc. within the Department. 

The inspectors tended to be trigger happy however, and would report perfectly safe things instead like experiments that were still (mostly) under control, or fun modifications the Unspeakables had added to their Department. That meant, all experiments had to be put on hold, the modifications had to be removed on the coffee maker, 13’s wards had to come down, 42 had to store xir blood somewhere other than the communal fridge, and, well, you get the idea. The inspectors always still found something to nitpick at, and there was always a lot of unnecessary paperwork. 

This inspector was particularly easy to hate, as a few of the Unspeakables knew much too well. It was the pink loving toad, Dolores Umbridge. 

Inspecting the Department was considered a punishment, and Dolores Umbridge was hated even among the people of the boring Ministry, so it wasn’t really much of a surprise, but that doesn’t mean they were happy about it. There were actually only five people who knew her personally, but they had told the rest stories about her, and she was well hated as a _criminally_ boring person. Hermione’s story about leaving her to the centaurs was well loved within the Department, and even though everyone had it memorized, they asked her to retell every time they gathered for drinks.

The Department, therefore, decided to have a little bit of fun with the toad. It started with 42 following her around everywhere, pointedly sucking on a blood flavored lollipop, but the others got in on it quickly, too. 666 explained the use of his summoning circle a bit more graphically than necessary, E22 let the contained Fiendfyre threaten to break out of its (actually completely unnecessary, E22 had (mostly) tamed it) ward several times, 23 hit her with a tripping spell just as she passed the Veil so she just barely avoided hurtling in… 

It ended up turning into a sort of competition. Who could terrorize the inspector the most? There were some very good contributions, but Beady’s works were undoubtedly the best.

Beady started by appearing in every room Umbridge entered in a form of more subtle psychological terrorization. Then, when Umbridge started to pick up on it, Beady would move around the room, slowly circling in closer, until Umbridge finally hurried out of the room- only to find Beady sitting on the floor of the hallway. Then, during the lunch break, as Umbridge steadfastly refused the food she was offered, (which was barely modified, honestly, how _rude_ ) Beady sat across the table from her, slowly devouring an apple with its needle sharp teeth. When Umbridge hurried out to “get a breath of fresh air”, Beady found its way onto Umbridge’s seat, so when Umbridge sat down again, she sat down right on Beady’s open maw. Beady, before it had become sentient, had held a pocket universe of Hermione’s creation within it, so it was no trouble to quickly swallow the annoying inspector whole, although it was harder to hold such a gross, ill tasting being within it. Beady spat it out, and the Unspeakables, delighted with their little friend, quickly plied Beady with delicious toxic waste to wash away the ugly taste of toad. That night, they all got drunk on E22’s collection of Fiendfyre Whiskey in Beady’s honor. 

The Unspeakables, as you might be able to tell, lead interesting lives. Still, none of them had woken up to something quite this interesting before. It took some work to piece together what had happened, especially since every single camera had exploded, but they managed to figure it out. 

They had all gotten very wasted, not just on Fiendfyre Whiskey- it looked like they’d also broken out the highly experimental and quite dangerous (for the people around the drinker, not the drinker themself) Inspiration Potions and some Liquid Luck- and, well… There was a shrine, an honestly quite beautiful shrine to Beady in the lounge. They were all also dressed in some top quality supervillain gear that had “R5 high on Inspiration Potions and Liquid Luck” written all over it. Some of them had also light battle wounds- you know, slight stab wounds, bullet grazes, that sort of thing. 

Also, Sirius Black was there too, passed out on the couch, which was purring happily, probably because someone had spilled alchohol on it and it was still drunk. 

A quick check of the news found that there was no news about any newly declared dark lords, so they all collectively shrugged and went back to sleep. They were very hungover, so who could really blame them?

After they woke up a second time, they all listened to Sirius, who was the only thing he remembered anything, as he was also the only one not completely wasted out of his mind, explain what had happened. 

Sirius Black, upon falling through the veil, had found himself in a somewhat strange world. It was similar in that it generally obeyed the same laws of physics and whatnot, but, well. Instead of everyone being impressed that Harry Potter had survived a killing curse, they were all impressed he had survived a killing purse. There was no Voldemort, but everyone was terrified over a small, beaded handbag that went around eating people’s Dark artifacts and gnawing on their ears and things. 

(“Did you eat Voldemort?” Hermione asked Beady. Beady growled cheerily back, and Hermione gave Beady a scritch as praise.) 

Dumbledore attempted to place the miraculous survivor of the killing purse with Vernon and Petunia Dursley, but the two muggles were mysteriously devoured by a small, beaded handbag with a very large appetite. Sirius appeared at about this time, and, once he was up to date on current events, quickly broke Other Sirius out of Azkaban. Other Sirius adopted Other Harry, and meanwhile Sirius traversed the world, trying to find a way back to the regular world, since there was no veil in the other realm, probably because Beady had eaten it. 

Beady continued living with Harry, protecting him from harm, and devouring tasty treats, its favorite of which had been the sleeping basilisk hidden in Hogwarts. The venom gave it a really tasty tang that Beady hadn’t found anywhere else.

One day in Other Harry’s fifth year, a group of wizards and witches dressed in tight black leather with some quite nice capes appeared in the middle of the Great Hall and declared that they were the Unspeakably Fabulous Dark Overlords Or Something, and that they officially ruled everything now, because they were “liiike… Dark Lords ‘n’ shit, right… like Voldequarts, but more… fabulous!” Upon seeing Sirius (Sirius had gotten a job as Quidditch Coach) and confirming he was “their Sirius” by means Sirius didn’t understand, they took Sirius along for the ride.

They then proceeded to Apparate to the Ministry, spray paint “UNSPEAKABLY FABULOUS” on everything, and then left. They appeared in New York City as well, and, well, not just broke the Statute of Secrecy, but completely _obliterated_ it. 

The American magical community was understandably upset. Things went a little bit blurry, Sirius said, because he’d drank a few sips of Fiendfyre Whiskey somewhere along the way, but he thought they’d gotten captured and stuck in some dungeon. The last thing he remembered was Beady eating them a way out. 

“Well,” E22 said slowly, “I think that’s a better story than even that time Hermione set the centaurs on Umbridge.” 

Sirius perked up with interest. “Do tell.” 

“I think we may want to avoid Fiendfyre Whiskey for a bit,” Hermione told E22, and then promptly passed out into her cereal.

**Author's Note:**

> 42 is 42 because of course the one who's undead is named after the answer to life, the universe and everything. 
> 
> I didn't expect this story to go this way, but this is what happened when I started writing it... *shrugs*
> 
> Tag yourself as one of the Unspeakables, I'm 67U.
> 
> edit: Beady is a powerful eldritch being due to all of the toxic, radioactive, Eldritch and Dark waste it has eaten, and that's how it can teleport around the Department.
> 
> edit edit: oh my god i made Beady such a Mary Sue. I mean, uh, Beady Ebony Eldritch Fabulousness is not a Mary Sue at all!
> 
> edit edit edit: X is inspired by the guy in the Leaky Cauldron reading a book on space time while nonverbally and wandlessly stirring his coffee.


End file.
